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[cormack12]

Source: Kotaku - archived link

Aliens: Fireteam Elite was released on August 23 to mixed reviews, but on Steam it averaged around or above 10k players for the first few weeks after release. But a lack of content, small updates, and possibly the release of the popular Back 4 Blood recently have killed the player base on PC, with only 792 players online at the time of writing.

Developed by Cold Iron Studios, Aliens: Fireteam Elite is a third-person co-op shooter that plays similarly to Back 4 Blood and Left 4 Dead. It features different classes, a progression system, and loot. I’ve played a decent chunk of the game in co-op with my brother and had a fun time with it, but I’d be lying if I said I was excited to play more. And it seems I’m not alone.

 

[VN1X]

Okay?

I put 70 hours into this lol. I've completely rinsed it and I imagine others have as well. Now we wait for new content.

Not every game needs to retain 100k players a week. This is such a weird mentality. Imagine finishing a game and moving on to the next...

 

[Romulus]

It's a fun romp, but not something with legs for most.

 

[TheSHEEEP]

Not every game needs to retain 100k players a week. This is such a weird mentality. Imagine finishing a game and moving on to the next...

Usually I'd agree, but this is an online game first and foremost, comparable to the likes of Deep Rock Galactic, Vermintide, etc.

It is actually important for games in that genre to keep a somewhat steady userbase.

A 90% drop THIS quickly is not the best of signs.
It's really not guaranteed that a new content drop will make all the players come back and/or purchase the content and/or new players coming on board.

 

[jupzter05]

I mean I got the all the guns and max all the classes and got the targeting headset... Its not a Live Service so most of us who spent 50+ hours on launch are waiting for new contents...

 

[VN1X]

Usually I'd agree, but this is an online game first and foremost, comparable to the likes of Deep Rock Galactic, Vermintide, etc.

It is actually important for games in that genre to keep a somewhat steady userbase.

A 90% drop THIS quickly is not the best of signs.

Not at all. This is a game with finite content. It's also does not feature randomised content or GAASlike systems (which include cosmetics, unlocks, missions, etc) that DRG has.

This is just the gamesmedia clickbaiting again, trying to spin an arbitrary CCU (comparing it to other games) as a negative. It's nonsense.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

It released?

I’ m not sure how significant this is. It doesn’t sound like a game that makes huge numbers in the first place, and people have a lot to choose from.

More important would be, how is the game?

 

[STARSBarry]

I enjoyed it mostly.

The issue is that it's relatively short on content and more importantly the harder difficulties don't feel "challenging" they feel "cheap" in that rather than playing well you instead need to abuse gaps in the AI and broken builds to "cheese" the content.

So a majority of people won't be sticking around like Back 4 Blood or World War Z trying to clear on the hardest difficulty, they just give up once they realise how unfun and unfortunately unrewarding doing that is.

Shame but it is what it is.

 

[VN1X]

It released?

I’ m not sure how significant this is. It doesn’t sound like a game that makes huge numbers in the first place, and people have a lot to choose from.

More important would be, how is the game?

It's great and really close to the source material in terms of atmosphere and attention to detail. However once you've unlocked everything and completed all the difficulties up to "Insane" there isn't a lot left to do.

Even games such as Vermintide 2 (with years of content updates now I might add) have randomized AI horde placements but in AFE even spawns are set in stone. It makes it so you can really master the game in a relative short time but isn't that great for the longevity.

At the end of the day though this is a game made by a tiny team with a small budget. In my opinion they've done really well by the IP, considering.

 

[Spaceman292]

It wasn't scary enough. That's one of the reasons L4D was so great.

 

[Concern]

B4B probably took a lot of that player base just being new. Now will that hold or will people come back to this is the question imo.

 

[Fools idol]

I was kinda enjoying it for a few days but my usual group of friends really didn't like it and stopped playing after a day, so I was sort of left with playing solo and the experience was terrible. It's a shame as it had so much wasted potential.

 

[shaddam]

I sometimes play Alien vs Predator 2 online which is below 50 players around the whole world during peaktime. Not every game needs 10 million players

 

[Cockles & Whelks]

Slightly off topic, but season 3 of The Movies That Made Us on Netflix covers Aliens. It's a pretty funny watch. Especially the UK vs US crew clash.

 

[MiguelItUp]

Honestly, it's so shitty that Kotaku would even point towards this. The game was/is a budget title and the developer's first title. Not only that, but this is just on Steam, AND this kind of title typically has traffic like this. It'll find a number and sit at that number until new content releases and it peaks. That's really it. If this was some kind of big mass marketed AAA title, I guess I'd understand the "news" aspect of it, but it was never anything of the sort, lol.

As a huge Alien(s) fan I honestly enjoyed this game a LOT more than I thought I would. The devs frequently patched and even added things that the community asked for more than a number of AAA developers I've seen over the years. It was honestly pretty impressive. I mean, with a team of 25-35 devs, I wasn't expecting such a timely turn around.

I put about 80 hours into the game over the course of a month and some change.

Also, please don't give Kotaku clicks, Jesus Christ.

 

[HellforLeather]

I really like this game but like others have said...not enough levels. The first DLC should have been a new map, not a class. Classes take a long time to level up, like enough time to go through the campaign multiple times. Same thing with guns. I dont think we need more content there.